Alex B. Berezow
Alex B. Berezow is a science writer with a Ph.D. in microbiology. Is he a libertarian, or is he a conservative-libertarian, or is he just a conservative? Perhaps it does not matter. What we do know is that he has made a career red baiting fellow scientists as a collaborator with the conservative movement. Pandering to a Conservative Audience Describing himself as ideologically neutral or moderate, Berezow nonetheless descibed President Barack Obama as being on the "far Left" when promoting his book, Science Left Behind at the American Enterprise Institute on Oct. 24, 2012. Just how rightist must one be to credit description of a president who saved finance capital from its managerial excesses with enormous bailouts and has been more aggressive in prosecuting the War on Terror with drone strikes than former President G.W. Bush of being not just "left" but "far-left"? Could someone who claims to be a moderate or centrist actually engage in such absurd red baiting? Whether or not Berezow actually believes what he said about Obama, his hyperbolic pandering to this conservative audience also included whining about the supposed leftist bias of U.S. news coverage. That claim is not supported by scientific findings. Indeed it has been unambiguously disconfirmed. See Tien-Tsung Lee's "The Liberal Media Myth Revisited: An Examination of Factors Influencing Perceptions of Media Bias." Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media. 49, 1 (2005): 43-64. Shouldn't a self-identified scientist makes claims for truth consistent with scientific findings? So why make the unfounded claim of leftist media bias? One possibility is that Berezow may reject empirical social science like that reported by Lee as science. However, unless he believes that human behavior is not part of the natural world - that it is somehow supernatural - then he must accept it as science. He might believe that all news coverage is inherently biased and that the only possibilities are the binary of leftist bias or righist bias. If so, then that is an obvious example of the fallacy of the excluded middle. Neutral, unbiased news coverage is common enough. Hypocrisy In a column for USA Today, Berezow stated , "It is striking that the qualities that make for a good scientist are identical to those that make for a good libertarian." Hardly the voice of neutral science. He also endorsed a "markets solve all problems" energy-environmental policy position in support of carbon taxs in an article titled, "Why Everyone Should Love a Carbon Tax." Also, on the conservative television Fox & Friends, host Brian Kilmeade asked Berezow about the "global warming scam." Berezow responded that he did not believe global warming was a scam. However he did lisp his way through an accusation that it was problem when scientists start to endorse public policies becuase it is outside their area of expertise. Yet that is exactly what Berezow does! He also let the host of the show say that those scientists "use their eraser" to skew their results. Links * Joe Bastardi * false attribution * far left * Left-Right Ideological Spectrum * hyperbole * name calling * People External Links * Berezow's conservatism Democratic Underground * Berezow's libertarianism USA TODAY * Berezow's defense of liberal carbon tax * Berezow rejects right-wing talking points on climate change Mediaite * Atheists Talk